The Smartest Man in Europe

The Smartest Man is a Firedancer

“The next step will be for every central bank in the world to keep printing money.  Ultimately this will bring on a higher level of inflation, but I think the world is ready to accept that.  World leaders will agree that growth should be their objective and inflation will be the price they will have to pay for it.  This may result in some instability among currencies.  Before this happens there will have to be more suffering.  Spain and Greece will default.  There won’t be outright financial disaster because by the time the defaults take place the banks will have sold most of the troubled sovereign debt on their balance sheets to the European Central Bank.  France’s deficit will get worse as Hollande implements some of the programs he talked about in his campaign.  Human beings and governments have an unlimited imagination and they will use it to delay the day of reckoning.  In the longer term the crisis may turn out to be a good thing because the pain of what we are about to go through will prevent it from ever happening again."

and

“So what am I doing with my money?  It is hard to hide in stocks.  Even Danone is reporting disappointing earnings; people are so worried they aren’t even buying yogurt.  The French auto companies are in trouble.  I think gold is going much higher.  I am buying energy stocks because I want to own something real.  Preserving capital is my focus now, not making money, but I like IBM and Apple.  Also some Swiss multi-nationals.  If Obama wins in November the market will go down.  A Romney victory will create a rally, but once he gets into office he will find there is not much he can do to make things better.”

Has a major bear market in gold begun? - Mark Hulbert - MarketWatch

Has a major bear market in gold begun? - Mark Hulbert - MarketWatch

In a word, Hulbert says 'no,' but also, do not become a perma-bull, worth reading...

Lukas Rosol hails 'miracle' Wimbledon win over Rafael Nadal - Wimbledon - Sport - Evening Standard

Lukas Rosol hails 'miracle' Wimbledon win over Rafael Nadal - Wimbledon - Sport - Evening Standard

He loses in the first round of the Wimbledon qualifiers each year for the past 5 years, not Wimbledon, the tournament to win a wild card into Wimbledon.

He comes back to defeat legend Rafael Nadal, in 5 sets.  He had never played in the tournament before, he had never been on Centre Court.  He went out to get the "feel" of it before his match.  He was hoping just not to lose 0, 1 and 1, he said.

He had "the eye of the tiger," though, a powerful hunger to win, and an insane self-confidence, and went all out on his shots.  Taken together, it was enough for the no. 100 player to defeat the no. 2 player. 

A stunning comeback to the site of his former defeats. We saw it 'live,' unforgettable.

Sermon to the Fish From Mahler's The Youth's Magic Horn

St. Anthony arrives for his Sermon
and finds the church empty.
He goes to the rivers
to preach to the fishes;

They flick their tails,
which glisten in the sunshine.

The carp with roe
have all come here,
their mouths wide open,
listening attentively.

No sermon ever
pleased the carp so.

Sharp-mouthed pike
that are always fighting,
have come here, swimming hurriedly
to hear this pious one;

No sermon ever
pleased the pike so.

Also, those fantastic creatures
that are always fasting -
the stockfish, I mean -
they also appeared for the sermon;

No sermon ever
pleased the stockfish so.

Good eels and sturgeons,
that banquet so elegantly -
even they took the trouble
to hear the sermon:

No sermon ever
pleased the eels so.

Crabs too, and turtles,
usually such slowpokes,
rise quickly from the bottom,
to hear this voice.

No sermon ever
pleased the crabs so.

Big fish, little fish,
noble fish, common fish,
all lift their heads
like sentient creatures:

At God's behest
they listen to the sermon.

The sermon having ended,
each turns himself around;
the pikes remain thieves,
the eels, great lovers.

The sermon was pleasing,
they all stay the same!

The crabs still walk backwards,
the stockfish stay rotund,
the carps still stuff themselves,
the sermon is forgotten!

The sermon was pleasing,
they all stay the same!

Sermon to the Fish From Mahler's The Youth's Magic Horn

Is there a Suicide Gene? Or 10 or more of them?

Excerpt:

The finding adds support to a 2,000-year-old belief, dating back to Biblical times, that mental illness and self-destructiveness run in families. Epidemiological studies also back up this idea. For example, two countries that top the world's suicide rate list are Hungary and Finland, with 40 suicides per 100,000 people. Although the countries lie 1,600 kilometers apart, their people share a language group and, presumably, genes. The Finno-Ugric people lived together for thousands of years in the Ural Mountains of what is now Russia, then migrated to Finland and Hungary.

The medical literature has documented many genetic links to suicide. One such study, published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics in 1985 examined the rate of suicide among the Amish population in southern Pennsylvania. Genealogical and medical records revealed that four families accounted for 73 percent of all suicides, but represented only 16 percent of the total Amish population. 

Read:


A Suicide Gene

Arianna Huffington: Iraq and Iran: A Partnership Made in America

Interestingly, Bible prophecy talks about a resurgent and wealthy Iraq (Babylon) at the end time.  Here is the forecast from none other than Arianna.....

Arianna Huffington: Iraq and Iran: A Partnership Made in America

The stages of man can be found on the continent

The British writer AA Gill once noted that…

“Europe is an allegory for the ages of man. You are born Italian, relentlessly infantile and mother-obsessed. In childhood, you are English: chronically shy, tongue-tied clicky and only happy kicking balls or pulling the legs off things. Teenagers are French: pretentiously philosophical, embarrassingly vain, ridiculously romantic yet simultaneously insecure. During Middle-Age, we become either Irish and fun loving, or Swiss and serious. Old age is German: ponderous, pompous and pedantic. And finally, we regress into being Belgian, with no idea of who we are at all.”

from:
Learning from the Best: Inflation Lessons from Argentina

A few words on the obesity epidemic

Why Bloomberg Is Right

A thought provoking and persuasive piece from the radio host of the New York Philharmonic broadcasts.  You know him as actor Alec Baldwin......

Recent archeology finds back Bible

From author and commentator Hal Lindsey:

Several recent archaeological discoveries in Israel have confirmed the veracity of the Scriptures.

The journal, "International Geology Review," recently reported on an investigation of earthquake activity around the Dead Sea, just a few miles east of Jerusalem. Geophysicists studied three core samples taken from the shores of the Dead Sea that offered evidence of at least two sizable earthquakes. Their investigation narrowed the dates of those earthquakes to 31 B.C. and sometime between 26 and 36 A.D., during the time when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea.

Scientists from California-based Super Sonic Geophysical believe the second quake probably occurred around 33 A.D. When considered with other data, both historical and astronomical, the best estimate is that it occurred sometime in April of 33 A.D. This would concur with the Jewish month of Nisan, which indicates it may confirm the earthquake described in Matthew 27:51. That scripture describes the quake that happened when Jesus, from the cross, cried out in a loud voice and gave up His Spirit.

Last year, archaeologists from Tel Aviv University announced the discovery of a limestone ossuary. An ossuary is a box used for the burial of human bones. This burial box bore an unusual and detailed inscription. In short, it was positively identified as the ossuary of Miriam, the granddaughter of Caiaphas, the High Priest who presided over the trial of Jesus.

And this month, a professor from Hebrew University uncovered evidence confirming the existence of an Israelite kingdom centered in Jerusalem around the time of Kings David and Solomon. The same archaeologist also reported discovering the oldest Hebrew inscription ever found. On a shard of pottery, the inscription confirms the existence of a centralized, literate Hebrew kingdom more than 3,000 years ago. The professor announced that these discoveries prove that David was not a mythological figure or just the leader of a small tribe.

I think it's always exciting when archaeological and scientific discoveries confirm the historical record contained in the Bible. You see, Christianity is different from other world religions. Most of them can survive their sacred texts being found to contain conflicting details. What's most important to them are the broad generalities they teach, not the particulars of their founders' lives. But Christianity holds itself to such a high standard -- 100% accuracy (a standard established by God Himself) -- that the details of the life and death of Jesus Christ are critical to the validity of Christianity's entire message. In fact, if a single historical fact regarding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not true, the entire structure of Christianity collapses.

But the sheer fact that the people who were eyewitnesses to the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ were happily willing to sacrifice their lives rather than deny even the tiniest detail, speaks volumes. And it still serves to encourage those of us who follow Him 2,000 years later.

But we don't have to depend on the miracles of modern scientific discovery to affirm our faith in Jesus Christ. Perhaps the most powerful confirmation of all comes from the Scriptures themselves. It is absolutely amazing to me how many ways the Bible confirms its own veracity. From the New Testament writers' indirect confirmations of each other, to the accuracy of the multiple, parallel accounts of events, to the eyewitness testimony, to the deathbed testimony, to the miraculous, exact fulfillment of centuries-old prophecies concerning Christ's crucifixion, to the lack of denials from leaders of the day, to the willingness of the witnesses to die for their testimony, the Bible is its own best witness.

No body of literature in all history has been as thoroughly studied, vetted, picked apart, and argued and debated over as the Bible. Religions have sprung up to disprove it. Entire doctrines depend on there being a Bible to reject. Most atheists, rationalists, and humanists can find at least some common ground with most of the other world religions, but it's the Bible alone that raises their hackles and fires up their evangelistic fervor.

Given the weight of all the evidence pointing to both the historical accuracy and Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, it seems to me that it would be much more amazing if it WEREN'T all true. The Bible has been under constant attack by the smartest guys in every generation since it was compiled. If a single thing in the Scripture were conclusively disproved -- a named person who didn't live, a place that never existed, an event that didn't take place -- then the Word of God is broken. Of all the thinkers and philosophers who have lived during the last two thousand years, not one has been able to claim the title of the man who proved the Bible wrong. Because it isn't.

Recovery or Collapse?

With an eye on the approaching dollar crisis, which will wreck the international financial system, the presidents of China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, and the prime minister of India met last month to discuss forming a new bank that would shield their economies and commerce from mistakes made by Washington and the European Union. The five countries, known as the BRICS, intend to settle their trade with one another in their own currencies and cease relying on the dollar. The fact that Russia, the two Asian giants, and the largest economies in Africa and South America are leaving the dollar’s orbit sends a powerful message of lack of confidence in Washington’s handling of financial matters. 

If you think being "Republican" is a solution, please read the whole text carefully:

Recovery or Collapse? Bet on Collapse |

Start-ups, Chicago style

Forty Chicago technology companies and 250 individuals pay for round-theclock access to common areas and huddle rooms within 25,000 square feet on the 15th floor of a skyscraper across from the Sears Tower. In any given month 300 reps from outside companies pass through for meetings and networking. “Most co-working facilities suck,” says Howerton, 40. “Too many freelancers and not enough growth.” Since opening in January 2007, 157 startups have flourished at TechNexus, including Flowerpetal.com, which sells $8 million worth of flowers each year, and Open Kernel Labs, whose virtualization software powers 1.5 billion wireless devices. TechNexus companies have raised $74 million in capital.


The space is a living diorama of the startup life cycle. The common area attracts one- and two-person companies, while more established companies rent desk space inside the glass-enclosed room just right of the welcome desk.

Full text:  The Rookery - Forbes.com

Get Ready: We’re About To Have Another 2008-Style Crisis

Get Ready: We’re About To Have Another 2008-Style Crisis

The proverbial picture worth 1,000 words, no?

Kevin Hickey, a long shot who fulfilled a neighborhood dream, dies at 56 - PhotoGallery - Chicago Sun-Times

Kevin Hickey, a long shot who fulfilled a neighborhood dream, dies at 56 - PhotoGallery - Chicago Sun-Times

Unbelievable comeback(s) story ---- more than one......

Well laid out minority opinion: Germany will blink and won’t let Greece exit euro - Matthew Lynn's London Eye - MarketWatch

Germany will blink and won’t let Greece exit euro - Matthew Lynn's London Eye - MarketWatch

The Next Bubble?

....today a decision to embark on the pathway to a college degree has enormous financial implications.  

Must read.

 

BBC News - JPMorgan reveals shock $2bn trading loss on investments

BBC News - JPMorgan reveals shock $2bn trading loss on investments

Is an Economic Deluge Nigh?

Feature from Casey Research

Scroll down and see the excerpt from the student essay, and it may tell you everything you need to know about where we are today, and how we got there.....

Change.org

Give a look to this. Some are using it to 'change the world.'

Change.org|The Proven Petition Site

Brain Injury Gives Man A Second Chance To Be Kind : NPR

Brain Injury Gives Man A Second Chance To Be Kind : NPR

Feeling taxed yet?

In 1913, the year income tax began here (yes, it didn't always exist), the IRS tax code ran 27 pages.

For 2011, it was 5,300 pages.  That's four times the epic War and Peace, by Tolstoy.

Iran says could hit U.S. if it came under attack: paper | Reuters

Iran says could hit U.S. if it came under attack: paper | Reuters

U.S. officials debate virulence of Iran-backed Hezbollah's threat | Reuters

U.S. officials debate virulence of Iran-backed Hezbollah's threat | Reuters

Public suicide by pharmacist in Greek capital steps from Parliament

Athens: Suicide Man Leaves Behind Shocking Note

Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Society

In a sharp political -and for some even “shocking” - tone the man who committed suicide just a couple of meters away from the Greek Parliament in the heart of Athens on Wednesday morning explained the motives for his desperate act. In a hand-written note, retired pharmacist D.X., 77, spoke of loss of dignity due to harsh austerity and wished that some day the youth of the country would take the arms and hang those politicians who brought the country and its people to this stage. He had left a similar not to his daughter.

Daily Proto Thema exclusively published the shattering hand-note of D. Ch.:

“The occupation government of Tsolakoglou* literally annihilated any possibility for my survival that was depended on a decent pension which only I personally paid for 35 years (without any state support).

Because my age does not give me the possibility for a dynamic reaction (without meaning that if a Greek would grab the kalashnikov, I wouldn’t be the second one [to grab one], I see no other solution than the decent end before I start searching in the garbage for food.

I believe that one day the youth without future will take the arms and hang upside down at Syntagma Square the national traitors as the Italians did with Mussolini in 1945 Piazza Poreto in Milan)”

Not selling code for $60k "chump change"

Here's a market I didn't know existed: stunning what software security is worth on the open market.

Yet another reason to teach your children the premier language of the 21th century, not Spanish, not Chinese ---- software coding.

From Forbes....

Illinois -- Obama's Model America

by guest columnist
Roger A. Keats
Former state senator, Illinois

Illinois is Obama’s model for America. I lived in Illinois for 60 years and want to be sure voters understand what living in Obama's America for a second term, when he will be immune from public pressure, will be like.

Now jailed Governor Blagojevich made up new state programs with no authorization from the legislature and spent money not appropriated. When Obama was a State Senator he supported ignoring the constitution and supported Governor Blagojevich’s shenanigans. Sound familiar in the Obama administration? By the way, 4 of Illinois’ last 7 governors have gone to jail.

Illinois hasn’t had a balanced budget since the last century. That is unconstitutional, but in Illinois, they don’t care about the constitution. Illinois is buried in debt! The budget increases many times faster than the rate of inflation and huge new programs with no real source of funding are added on a regular basis. The state, with no legal authorization, covers health care for families making almost $90,000/ year. Past insolvent, not one penny has been trimmed from the budget since the last century. Sound familiar in the Obama Administration?

Illinois is #1 in unfunded pension liabilities, failing schools, jailed judges, jailed aldermen and jailed government workers. Illinois has one of the highest unemployment rates in America and it is going up, not down. There were more jobs in Illinois in 2000 than today and their solution was to raise the income tax 67% to go with the nation’s highest sales tax. Like Greece and America Illinois borrows money to fund day to day operating expenses. Illinois buried itself in more debt to pay for massive stimulus spending on public infrastructure. Taxes and regulations are unbearable so the Democrats give special tax breaks to their friends but let small business folks hang. Crony capitalism any one? Sound familiar in the Obama’s administration?

Education reform? Chicago brags the dropout rate from its schools is down to 50%!!! Big city public schools across America, all of them run by hard core liberals are the face of institutional racism as they force minority kids into failed systems that will guarantee the kids are not employable. The Obama administration has lowered educational standards in over 20 states already to make the failure of many public school systems dominated by Obama’s allies, the teachers unions, less obvious. Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

In the corruption capitol of America, Illinois’ Attorney General is a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil state embarrassment who refuses to investigate or prosecute public corruption! There has been no investigation of the massive mortgage fraud involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Illinois or the crony capitalism. Obama allies Rahm Emanuel and the state’s former Democrat Attorney General, Neal Hartigan, were board members of Freddie Mac during the worst of the accounting fraud. No investigation. Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

The Chicago Transit Authority, once a model for the nation, is now continually bankrupt and is getting deeper into debt daily. There is no attempt to control the rapidly escalating costs. The unions have free rein. The governor and the state legislature continue to support an obscenely expensive proposed high speed rail line. Everyone admits it will never come close to breaking even, but who cares? There will always be a federal subsidy, right? Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

Unions go unchallenged at all levels. Government employees either pay union dues or they are fired! In Chicago government there are three union locals with only 1 member! Union officials are allowed into the public pension funds even though they don’t work for the public! Government union members can retire at age 50 with full pensions and health care! Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

Chicago remains the nation’s most segregated city and Democrat politicians regularly split ethnic and racial groups apart regardless of how it affects the city and state as a whole. There are no elected Republicans in the city. Yet White Democrats accuse the Republicans of racism and the Black Wards vote 95% Democrat! Any opposition is bitterly attacked, usually with lies and even complete fabrications to try to destroy them. Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

Chicago has the toughest anti gun laws in America. The U. S. Supreme Court overturned them in a land mark case but it had no effect on how Chicago deals with guns. Similar to Obama’s DOJ Fast & Furious program to sell Mexican drug cartels modern American guns to undermine private ownership.

Radical leftists and domestic terrorists like Bill Ayres and his wife Bernardine Dohrn are high society in Chicago. Despite their alleged criminal past, both were granted tenure at major Chicago universities. Dohrn’s law license was forfeited yet she is a faculty member of Northwestern’s law school! The public schools are dominated by radical leftists protected by the all powerful teachers unions. Sound like the Obama administration?

This is the model Barack Obama politically “grew up” in. Michelle Obama’s father was a Democrat patronage workers in the legendarily corrupt Chicago Machine. Obama was a loyal member of that machine. Democrat’s use their own racism as a political tool. Illinois is a basket case and getting worse. Is this what you want for 4 more years?

I still find it hard to believe America’s voters elected a politician from Illinois. Either party! Don’t they realize what is going on in Chicago and Illinois? If this is the model of what you want, vote for another 4 years of Barack Obama.

by
Roger A. Keats
Former State Senator, Illinois
ltckeats@gmail.com

Reviewing a New Yorker review of a new book on Revelation

To its credit, the New Yorker covers most every subject known to man, and in its March 5, 2012 issue, it wades into Bible prophecy, by way of Adam Gopnik's review (“The Big Reveal: why does the Bible end that way?”) of Elaine Pagels' new book “Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation.”

The author’s hypothesis is laid out by the reviewer as follows: “Pagel’s essential point is convincing and instructive: there were revelations all over Asia Minor and the Holy Land; John’s was just one of many, and we should read it as such.”

Wasn’t special, wasn’t inspired, and barely made it into the Bible, according the author. Suppose that was true, what does one do with the entire, consistent, systemic message of the rest of the Bible regarding the future?

Were it not for the myriad of verses, Old Testament and New, salient ones listed to follow, that call for a calamitous end to earthly life as we know it, and its replacement with a divinely-led kingdom, perhaps Pagels' hypothesis (a political not prophetic catalyst for John's writings) might hold more water. Meanwhile, the fact that we even have a modern Israel, surrounded by ever more bellicose enemies, preparing for a nuclear denouement, is itself a material fulfillment of Bible prophecy and the Bible itself -- all the way from Gen. 3:15 through the end of the book she questions.

The subject could not be more important, according to writers like Merton and Baudrillard, who said: “If it were a matter of choosing between “contemplation” and “eschatology,” there is no question that I am, and would always be, committed entirely to the latter.” Thomas Merton. And: from Baudrillard: “If parapsychological or extraterrestrial phenomena were genuine, or even merely plausible, one ought to devote oneself to them entirely, wasting not a single moment.” We couldn't agree more.

With those thoughts in mind, here are just seven points that go before Revelation in the Bible to consider that would surely refute Ms. Pagels’ refutation of Revelation:

Genesis 3:15. Here we have explained the essential nature of the universe: a war between God and Satan, one that has been protracted, yes, but will not go on forever. Jesus’s heel was wounded, so to speak, at his death, but Satan’s head would be crushed – a poetic way of saying total defeat awaits him. Hasn’t happened – yet.

Isaiah 17. 1 A prophecy against Damascus: ”See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins. -- 14 In the evening, sudden terror! Before the morning, they are gone! Hasn’t happened – yet.

Ezekiel 37. “They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.” Hasn’t happened – yet.

Ezekiel 38. When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign LORD. 19 In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. 20 The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. 21 I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign LORD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. 22 I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. 23 And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’ Hasn’t happened – yet.

Ezekiel 40-48. The millennial temple, described in enormous detail. Ends with: “And the name of the city from that time on will be: THE LORD IS THERE.” Hasn’t happened – yet.

Matthew 24. 3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.

1 Corinthians 15:19. Paul said it best: If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

With war in Syria, with Iran advancing its nuclear program, both backstopped by Russia, as predicted, how far are we from the denouement which Ms. Pagels marginalizes?

We might conclude with Jesus’ own words: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”

They will also be writing books, and book reviews – still knowing nothing (or believing nothing) about what would happen – right up to the end which they disparage.


Or put more simply still: prophecy is politics…

====================================================================


Check npr.org for an hour long interview with Ms. Pagels as well.

Laying down some unvarnished truth

DAVID STOCKMAN: You'd Be A Fool To Hold Anything But Cash (and some gold)

Santorum and Serious Financial Reform

Why Does Rick Santorum Have "Serious Problems" With the Gold Standard? - Forbes

Appears we have a problem with santimonious Rick S......

Gold down brisk $80 (4%) after Fed remarks: The end of precious metals -- or something else at work here?

Today’s Window Dressing Fall In Gold

Wyoming Bucks -- sound far-fetched?

Washington sits on its hands.

D.C. and states advance bigger and bigger budgets.

One state prepares for the worst:

Wyoming House advances doomsday bill

How to repair iGoogle broken widgets

Delete all cookies and history in Firefox.

Directions here

Have a Cold? There’s No Reason to Skip a Workout, Studies Show

Who knew?

Personal Best - Have a Cold? There’s No Reason to Skip a Workout, Studies Show - NYTimes.com

Maybe add some chicken soup after.......?

Whitney Houston's Death Will Earn Dolly Parton A Fortune

The way the financial wheels turn in the music industry, strangely enough:
Whitney Houston's Death Will Earn Dolly Parton A Fortune

Tuba Thefts Plague California Schools

Tuba Thefts Plague California Schools - NYTimes.com

The trip that sank before it sailed

The trip that sank before it sailed:

How retired CPS teacher Judy Dever got ripped off of a cruise when Symphonic Voyages went bankrupt.

Cautionary tale.

"Bold Alligator 2012" drills 20,000 troops on US East Coast for Persian Gulf action

Some 20,000 marines, seamen and air crews from half a dozen countries, a US nuclear aircraft carrier strike group and three US Marine gunship carriers are practicing an attack on a fictitious mechanized enemy division which has invaded its neighbor. It is the largest amphibian exercise seen in the West for a decade, staged to simulate a potential Iranian invasion of an allied Persian Gulf country and a marine landing on the Iranian coast. Based largely on US personnel and hardware, French, British, Italian, Dutch, Australian and New Zealand military elements are integrated in the drill.

Bold Alligator went into its operational phase Monday, Feb. 6, the same day as a large-scale exercise began in southern Iran opposite the Strait of Hormuz. This simultaneity attests to the preparations for a US-Iranian showdown involving Israel behind the words on Feb. 5 of US President Barack Obama ("I don't think Israel has decided whether to attack Iran") and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 3 ("The war itself will be ten times as detrimental to the US.").

Calls to mind the famous line by Dirty Harry: 'you have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk, well...........do you?'

At the same time, we read of internal strife affecting Iranian administration.

Events careening towards a denouement. How will things resolve?

Full story

Thomas Sowell on Iran

Thomas Sowell essay on Iran, from six years ago. Makes one realize how little progress has been made.........

George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War

Sobering thoughts from the man who "broke the Bank of England."

George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War - The Daily Beast

Inside Job

Academy Awards are in the news. If you see one film this year, see Inside Job, recent Oscar winner, Best Documentary. It is the best explanation of the 2008 financial crisis, and the true nature of the political structure of America, we have yet seen.

$6,000 Gold & Newt Gingrich

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich talks about a path back to hard money for the U.S.

Here's the math:

$6,000 Gold? Keep An Eye On Newt Gingrich - Seeking Alpha

Predictions 2012

1. Mayans rise to power and institute new calendar, calling for new end of the world, 4012. So, we go to overtime.......
2. Ahmadinejad renounces both Islam and little white jackets, applies to Harvard, where he is accepted as grad student and TA in nuclear physics.
3. To revive her moribund TV career, Sarah Palin comes out of hiding, wins Republican nomination, defeats Obama in photo finish race after all hanging chads counted (7 weeks).
4. Stock market falls 8,000 points.
5. Day after inauguration, Palin resigns, joins Oprah Winfrey Network as EVP. "You betcha," she says. "Just wanted to show all you I could do it!" She further explained that "all politics is entertainment" and only saw "the White House as a stepping stone to my dream job."
   
6. Stock market rallies 9,000 points.
7. Euro money crisis fades from view. EU finance minister explains: "All money is conceptual -- we imagined we had more, much more -- and it worked!"
8. Dow Jones reaches 35,000 -- predicted more than 12 years ago.
9. Gold plummets to 1930s level $20 per oz. Hedge fund king John Paulson: "When we broke $35, we realized we had trouble, big trouble, right here in....." Was led away while singing medley of Broadway show tunes.
   
10. Magyars replace Mayans as world thought leaders, suggest move U.N. headquarters to Budapest. "Only step one of many," premier says at news conference. Euro leaders demur.
    

Sorry to be tardy with these. More cross currents of change here than originally imagined.....

USA to Iran, watch this clip -- and yet, no joke, Iran needs to be stopped

The book, literally, on who will win Presidency 2012

2012 Presidential Election Markets Quotes

The futures market on presidential politics, from Iowa.

Jim Rogers isn't too optimistic about stock markets in 2012, sees longer term systemic collapse - Business Intelligence Middle East - bi-me.com - News, analysis, reports

Jim Rogers isn't too optimistic about stock markets in 2012, sees longer term systemic collapse - Business Intelligence Middle East - bi-me.com - News, analysis, reports

About Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers has spent a career being one step ahead of mainstream investment thinking. Amongst his many accomplishments, Rogers was co-founder with George Soros of Quantum Fund. During his ten years with the fund, the portfolio gained more than 4,000%, while the S&P rose less than 50%.

Rogers retired from Quantum in 1980 and became a guest professor of finance at Columbia University Graduate School of Business and in 1989 and 1990, the moderator of The Dreyfus Roundtable, The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers, and a media commentator worldwide.

But ask Jim Rogers about his most important venture and he will answer without hesitation: fatherhood.

A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing (RandomHouse, 85 pages, US$16) is Jim Rogers' love letter to his daughters, Happy and Baby Bee. Reminiscent of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which was also written by a father to his child, Rogers' book is full of no-nonsense, unsentimental fatherly advice.

Among Jim Rogers' best advice:

-- Conduct your own research and trust your own judgment.
-- Focus on what you yourself love.
-- Be persistent.
-- Broaden your horizons and see as much of the world as you can.
-- The most important thing you can learn is how to think and question everything you hear.
-- Study and learn from history.
-- Master more than one language - and make sure one of them is Mandarin.
-- Don't panic.
-- Take care of yourself and don't neglect the sunscreen.

-- Remember that boys need girls more than girls need boys.

Underscoring his convictions that future prosperity will come from China, Rogers' two young children speak Mandarin.

Admit nothing. Explain nothing.

Admit nothing. Explain nothing.

A closer look at the 1 percent - chicagotribune.com

A closer look at the 1 percent - chicagotribune.com

Au Ready?

Au Ready?

It takes a village to raise a millionaire

I am a wealthy guy. Yesterday I had lunch with a neighbor. He had sought me out as the result of an editorial I wrote for the local paper. He was my tennis partner when I started 20 years ago; we’ve kept our friendship going for nearly 30 years. Then I had coffee with another friend who had fallen on hard times, but is rising from the ashes, with courage, grace and good humor. Then I picked up some CDs at the library, was able to wish happy holidays to my favorite staff member. I hadn’t seen her in ages but we stay in touch by email. She and I go back to the mid-1990s when she helped me research esoteric math formulas for software I was building. Over the years she has been a genius at locating hard to find books or CDs or information of any kind. She, too, has weathered harsh storms in the sea of her personal life, she, too, is a survivor. Another friend, whose home we visited recently, was inside the library, we talked for a few moments, an unexpected bonus. Spending 31+ years resident in our small village surely pays dividends. It takes a village to raise a wealthy guy; I am a millionaire in friends. I hope you are, too.

Happy holidays, happy 2012, and Merry Christmas, dear reader…..

How Gold, Silver And Platinum Will Respond To ECB's Money Printing - Seeking Alpha

How Gold, Silver And Platinum Will Respond To ECB's Money Printing

Gold prices will eventually respond directly to monetary liquidity increases, no matter how much central bank price suppression intervention there may be right now. With huge euro injections, alongside significant quantitative easing in the UK and the USA, gold will rise stronger than ever, at least over the next three years. Silver, which responds both to monetary liquidity and to commercial demand, is going to rise even faster, especially as commercial demand increases in Europe, and those that "feed" Europe, like China.

From Seeking Alpha......

1000 words

Source http://www.jsmineset.com/

Primal Light from Mahler's The Youth's Magic Horn

Urlicht - Primal light

We hear a lot of classical music, vocal music sung in foreign tongues. Every once in a while, I look up what's actually being sung, and came across this remarkable and strange piece of poetry from Mahler's famous work, Das Knaben Wunderhorn, the Youth's Magic Horn. It reminds me a bit of the woman who pursued Jesus for healing, and wouldn't be dissuaded, or the centurion who did the same, and many, many others....

O little red rose,

Man lies in greatest need,
Man lies in greatest pain.
Ever would I prefer to be in heaven.
Once I came upon a wide road,
There stood an Angel who wanted to turn me away.
But no, I will not be turned away!
I came from God, and will return to God,
The loving God who will give me a little light,
To lighten my way up to eternal, blessed life!

Words of a Euro Doomsayer Have New Resonance - NYTimes.com

Words of a Euro Doomsayer Have New Resonance - NYTimes.com

Preparations underway to take over the Australian Open Tennis Tournament, January, 2012.....

"More valuable than all the mining rights in the land down under," Obama says.

Obama boosts U.S. military in Australia, reassures China | Reuters

Guest Post: Is There No Shame? | ZeroHedge

Re Penn State, one more post, because this says it even better.....puts the issue to rest.


Guest Post: Is There No Shame? | ZeroHedge

Personal rumination: In the days after the scandal broke, but before the heads rolled, it was confidently said by the media something to the effect, 'but the investigation does not involve Joe Paterno.' How could that be? I thought. The perpetrator had free range of the Penn State football facilities the entire decade after he resigned, and it was said he was working out there as recently as last week. How can Joe Pa "not be involved"? If I get rid of this guy for child molestation, i.e. forced "retirement", do I then invite him back --- to work out?

Didn't make sense to me. Appears I was just a couple days ahead of the grim reaper of consequences.

Conclusions:

1. Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise.
2. The media can get it wrong, sometimes way wrong, especially in the early stages of a crisis.
3. Calls to mind the phrase that was once made popular by another discredited figure: 'we don't know what we don't know.'
4. Next up: The relative complacency surrounding Greece, Italy, et al -- where will it finally lead? To a conclusion that no one (or precious few) in the media can foresee.....................?

Penn State's Paterno deserves no pity

The Chicago Tribune weighs in:

Penn State's Paterno deserves no pity


So what were the Penn State students possibly thinking as they rioted all over campus and tipped over cars and a satellite truck? When will they realize, after the buzz wears off and sobering reality sinks in, that they were defending the right to cover up pedophilia? As much as they love JoePa, that's the harsh reality.

Woody Hayes threw a punch. Bob Knight threw a chair. But in 10 years or so we will remember Paterno as much as anything for the alleged molestation he enabled that made us want to throw up. He always can be referred to as a great football coach. But I still cringed hearing loyal ex-players refer to Paterno as a great man.

.... out-to-lunch University President Graham Spanier.....

How a Financial Pro Lost His House - NYTimes.com

How a Financial Pro Lost His House - NYTimes.com

Urlacher opens up about loss of his mother

Urlacher opens up about loss of his mother

Meets Wells Tower, newly designated Best Short Story writer for 2011

New voice in short story writing: Wells Tower. Featured from time to time in the New Yorker. You may see yourself, or someone you know, in some of his stories.

Recently included in the 2011 “Best American Short Stories’’ anthology.

The next Cheever, or Murakami?

Fed's Operation Twist -- Explained

............So basically now you know what the Fed’s recent “Operation Twist” is all about (a more appropriate name might be “Operation Payoff”). We are paying a King’s Ransom to pave the way to devalue the dollar in the next QE3 and beyond. Just remember the downside of a falling dollar will be higher import prices and higher inflation.

From Richard Benson via 321gold.com

Full story

The overlooked Internet technology: the RSS feed

The Internet has changed life on this planet forever, but dare I say it, it is not perfect.

Shortcomings:

• Advertising, ubiquitous
• Trivialization (Facebook, Twitter)
• Spam (email)
  

There is one underutilized technology, however, that holds at bay the aforementioned troika: the RSS feed. You go to a news website, hit subscribe, and read it all updates in Google Reader (or other reader). That's all there is to it.

I was somewhat behind the curve on this recently, before I got going with it, and wondered if I was the only one. I surveyed some 68 members of an email list I maintain (for tennis). Here's what I asked:

BRIEF (nonscientific) TECH SURVEY

1. Do you subscribe by RSS/Atom to newsfeeds and/or blog posts?

2. If so, to how many of each, roughly?

3. If so, do you use Google Reader, or other reader (which?)

4. Any other comments on the subject solicited.

27% responded to a single emailing.

One used RSS, one inquired about it. Here are comments:

• Read Huffington Post and blogs there occasionally
• I do absolutely nothing with respect to RSS type news feeds. I am on a number of e-mail distrubution lists, and I virtually always delete those without reading. Now, if it was a news feed about Winnetka tennis...that's another story!!!
• I do not subscribe to any news or blog feeds.
• I do not subscribe to any RSS newsfeeds.
• I do not subscribe, but I do use Google and Ask on occasion.
• I don't
• I dont subscribe to those --I read few blogs, but do get three or four daily feeds from orgs or industries I keep up with. They come via Comcast mail, which I use.
• I don't subscribe to those things.
• I just got a Kindle as a Christmas gift from my wife, so my reading volume has nicely increased. I subscribe to RSS/Atom feeds directly through My Yahoo page.
• I rarely subscribe to RSS feeds. To question, do you use Google Reader, "not sure."
• I subscribe to no newsfeeds or blogs. I do subscribe to 5 podcasts on iTunes. The podcasts are, I think, RSS feeds.
• No I don't use either.
• NO, IMMEDIATE NEWS NOT THAT IMPORTANT TO ME. BLOG POSTS ARE MOSTLY OPINIONATED RANTS AND WHAT SOMEONE HAD FOR BREAKFAST LAST NIGHT
• No.
• Use Google Reader only and cannot get it to do what I what, i.e. spy on my competitors. Not feeds in either formant but am interested - suggestions on a primer for the novice?
• Wrote back, but did not answer question(s), perhaps didn't understand them.
• Wrote back, but did not answer question(s), perhaps didn't understand them.
• Wrote back, but did not answer question(s), perhaps didn't understand them.

In our opinion, RSS offers a quick and easy way to keep up with news, favorite blogs -- and keep the advertising and spam at bay.

Strange but true: J.J. Rousseau

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was celebrated for his contributions to educational theory, but had earlier given up his five children to a foundling hospital.

Wikipedia:

According to his Confessions, before she moved in with him, Thérèse bore him a son and as many as four other children (there is no independent verification for this number^[8]). Rousseau wrote that he persuaded Thérèse to give each of the newborns up to a foundling hospital, for the sake of her "honor". "Her mother, who feared the inconvenience of a brat, came to my aid, and she [Thérèse] allowed herself to be overcome" (Confessions). In his letter to Madame de Francueil in 1751, he first pretended that he wasn't rich enough to raise his children but in book IX of the confessions, he gave the true reasons of his choice : " I trembled at the thought of intrusting them to a family ill brought up, to be still worse educated. The risk of the education of the foundling hospital was much less."

Ten years later, Rousseau made inquiries about the fate of his son, but no record could be found. When Rousseau subsequently became celebrated as a theorist of education and child-rearing, his abandonment of his children was used by his critics, including Voltaire and Edmund Burke, as the basis for ad hominem attacks.

Even stranger:

In an irony of fate, Rousseau's later injunction to women to breastfeed their own babies (as had previously been recommended by the French natural scientist Buffon), probably saved the lives of thousands of infants.

Skin Deep: OSU vs Notre Dame in the Scandal Bowl

The Ohio State University vs Notre Dame: Whose Reputation is most Tarnished?

by guest columnist Rod Gibbs

Now is the season that two behemoth football programs will be putting on their pads for a bruising run at the national championship. There is no doubt that both Notre Dame and Ohio Sate University have been scared and tattooed by scandal. The marks left on skin and reputation will take many scrubbings of PR and good faith actions to dissolve.

Who is more culpable in these infamous incidents? On one hand, we have the OSU football program which has lost “More than a Coach”. They have lost Jim Tressel who has a national championship in 2002 and over an 82 % winning record. A coach who was like a father to his players but it turned out through a little digging by Sports Illustrated that dozens of his charges over the years were getting NCAA illegal assets at a tattoo parlor and car dealerships. On the other hand, we have the Holy of Holies - Notre Dame, which has smoothed over the fate of Declan Sullivan who fell to his death in a windstorm while filming football practice. Notre Dame has also tried to smooth over the suicide a St. Mary’s college student who was sexually harassed by a ND football player.

Jim Tressel had a record of oversight well before he arrived at OSU, including a physical episode on the sidelines. He always claimed he wasn’t aware of what was going on which should be a familiar refrain to USC fans who have watched the buddy to his players Pete Carroll go pro before possible NCAA sanctions.

The sins of OSU were underhanded payments while ND issues involved death in both cases, with blame resting on the shoulders of the ND “family” as they call themselves. Twenty year old Declan Sullivan was killed when the 40 foot tower he was on was toppled by a “sudden extraordinary burst of wind” as noted in the official report. I recall that day and the menace of wind storms was well noted on weather forecasts for the area.

Supposedly, the report of stronger winds didn’t appear to be upgraded until several hours before the start of football practice. However, Sullivan was aware of these severe weather reports before practice and Tweeted from the lift, “Holy shit, this is terrifying….I guess I’ve lived long enough” It is venial (a term familiar to Catholics) for ND to maintain that Sullivan was just joking about the situation since at that time planes were being diverted from landing at South Bend. The lift was rated for wind not above 25 mph while the gusts that came in were above 50 mph according to the OSHA investigation. Coach Brian Kelly called for the practice that day and was so dedicated to bettering his football team that he continued practice for nearly another half an hour after the accident.

The head of ND Rev. John Jenkins concluded, “numerous decisions by many people made in good faith…played a role in the accident” but “no one acted in disregard to safety”. So no one was responsible, no one charged, no one reprimanded, no one was fired. The most apt analogy that applies is the blindness and lack of responsibility by the catholic church in the case of child abuse by priests which lasted for decades. Yes, ND will set up a memorial scholarship and Sullivan’s sweet parents will not sue the university though no doubt they could gain millions if this were prosecuted.

The second issue is more problematic but shows the callousness and carelessness of ND and involves sexual harassment against Lizz Seeberg by an ND football player. She reported the episode to campus and local authorities but nothing significant was done. She supposedly received text messages saying “messing with ND football is a bad idea”. She was suffering emotional problems and several days later committed suicide. The investigation was brief by ND and local authorities who could not proceed because what Lizz had told them was “hearsay” - because she was dead. Just to illustrate the animus against a woman making charges in a campus environment are the words of -naturally – an anonymous pervert on a blog , “Thank god the female is dead. She’s one of those defective females who would be nothing but trouble.”

In comparing OSU to ND we must praise the Irish for a sterling 95% graduation rate, though this is in jeopardy now that the university has given Kelly the green light to recruit less qualified players. OSU has a mediocre 55 % graduation rate which actually breaks down to 85% of white players graduating to only 33% black players. OSU had seven players with felony records which was much less than Papa Paterno’s Penn State 16 felony players.

It is fair to say that Ohio State has far to go in football academics and payoff ethical issues. But these can be seen as essentially skin deep. The scandal issues of Notre Dame perhaps do not rate being banned by the NCAA as advocated by David Zirin in “The Nation” but there are deep flaws institutionally both in the football program and the university administration which have resulted in death and great pain to many families.

The Golden Dome has been tarnished and it will take serious reform to return the luster.

Acknowledge.....

...then let go.

I heard a speaker cite this as his mantra one recent morning on NPR.

Wish I had heard it 40 or 50 years ago.


Acknowledge...then let go....

Soprano Nation -- no not that Soprano....

A particularly thoughtful young man sent this, and we pass it along to you for consideration:

A Polity of Castrati

Soprano Nation

“All of the world's problems are products of the male ego,” said a swaggering bulldagger she-cop in Law and Order the other night. Average gringa. Actually, only some of the world's problems, as for example wars, are products of the male ego.

Of course, a curmudgeonly male—though I don't know any of these—might respond, “Woman, everything that keeps you and your sisters from squatting in caves and crushing lice is a product of the male brain.”

Which is true.

It is curious: Women seem to have no idea how profoundly they depend on men, and not just to fix thingy-whiches that make cars go. The pattern is that men invent and women use. Men invented cars, and women learned to drive them, usually without having the foggiest idea of how they work. Men also invented refrigerators, television, aircraft, hair-dryers, and tampons. Since women with few exceptions do not think technically unless they have to, they are unaware of the inordinate amount of inspired brainwork that led over millenia to computational fluid dynamics, band theory, the double helix, and TCP/IP.

We hear much triumphalism from women these days about the “male malaise,” the poor performance of boys in class, their depression and inattention in school, their declining presence in the universities. Why are these thing happening?/..................

Read on -----

Inside the hedge fund world

Portrait of no. 1 hedge fund Bridgewater's Ray Dalio.....in the New Yorker.

Retail experienceOr pays to shop around

Commerce is as a heaven, whose sun is trustworthiness and whose moon is truthfulness.

Bahá'u'lláh 1817-1892, Persian nobleman and founder of the Baha’I religion.

Had a clink in my bike chain recently. Not every crank, just every ---- so – often -------------?

What did it mean? Was I about to go hurtling over the handlebars like some of the luckless worthies in this year’s Tour de France?

I stopped by the local cyclery, about five blocks from my house. Young guy finally comes up from the basement. I told him my problem. He looked at the bike.

“Your chain is shot,” he said. “And the gears. And the brakes might go out, too. I had three like these in the past month just SNAP.”

How much to fix?

“Chain and gears. $150 to $170. But you know for an extra hundred or so you can get a whole new bike. Let me show you one,” he said walking me to the front of the store. “You’re here, you have your helmet on. Try it out, take a ride.”

He took my driver’s license as security – I guess my bike sitting there wasn’t enough – and off I went. It was a nice new hybrid, a Marin Kentfield FS, in a metallic silver. It was a pretty smooth ride, but I didn’t have the history with it I did with my trusty Trek 800, circa 1990.

Turned out, though, the bike wasn’t a hundred more, it turned out, it was $499. I said I’d think about it. I didn’t think enough at that particular moment on the way out, though, because I forgot my license (so did mr. cool guy bike tech), and had to drive back later that day.

Very next day, I was pedaling north, and remembered that my original bike dealer had moved to Highland Park. Would their service shop take a look, and give an opinion?

I was met at the front counter by a sincere young professional type. He looked at the chain, I lifted the bike, he spun the wheel, the chain wouldn’t clink, I rued.

“Of course not,” he smiled, "they never do once you get here." he laughed, most reassuringly. He studied the bike for a moment, and guessed it’s age within a couple years.

“Can I try something?” He took the bike out on the sidewalk and rode it down and back..

“Your bike seems fine,” he said. “I tried the gears. You don’t need a new chain or gears.”

That was it. He didn’t try to sell me a bike. I inquired about a new one, and he asked me what kind of riding I did. (Up and down the Green Bay trail, about 50 miles a week.) He complimented me, and showed me their Cannondale Quick, $469. “Quick, responsive, sturdy, fun to ride,” he said. We talked a bit, and decided, if I wanted to, a halfway move up would be to try two new hybrid tires on my ancient Trek, $30 each.

The store was spacious modern, with restroom facilities for cyclists. I was treated with respect, not like an imbecile.

Which cycle shop will get my tune-up business end-of-season, even though it’s a long ride north? And whatever the cost? (It’s $110, by the way vs. $89.50 at the first shop I described.) You guessed it.

Postscript: The Marin Kentfield FS can be found online for $319, reg. “$449.” The Cannondale Quicks, of which there are a number, were actually more than the $469 I was quoted by the second dealer. Surely does pay to shop around, pays to meet people, gather information.

Extraordinary Comedown: Ohio State's Jim Tressel

Pains me to share this, as an Ohio native, holder of two degrees from Ohio State University, and an author who featured Jim Tressel in one of his books, but we call this blog "Digging Deeper," and we go the mines every day, whatever our feelings.

Dig a bit below the gridiron glory of "More than a Coach" Tressel, Ohio Stadium, Buckeye football, and read the inside story on what took Jim Tressel down at Sports Illustrated. The fourth estate is the counterbalance to the illusion and misdirection that institutions -- seemingly nearly all of them -- put forth, and we are grateful for it.

Btw, to balance the ying and yang of these things, we also have a book "Extraordinary Comedowns." Not just for those afflicted with severe Schadenfreude, but for those who want to learn how things really work. It's hard to make it to the top of the mountain, yes, and even harder to stay there......

Digging deeper into the man behind the legend -- do it at your own risk

BOOK REVIEW
THE LAST BOY MICKEY MANTLE
And the end of America’s childhood by Jane Leavy

When baseball soaked up much of America’s consciousness in the 1950s, before there were 500 cable channels, video games, soccer, and all the rest, there was a god who ran the ballfields and basepaths among the mere mortals and his name was Mickey Mantle. Raised by a pro baseball wannebe, dad Mutt and Mom, and named for old-time player Mickey Cochrane so even his name would have the right pop of an icon, he was Mickey Mantle, (MM, like Marilyn Monroe, get it)? We all did.

He backed it all up as a 18-year-old with a 3.1 second burst to first base, and 550 ft. home runs. Strength, speed, power – there was none like Mickey Mantle. For those of us who were boys then, we formed an attachment to him, to his name, to his capability that ‘defied logic,’ as Bob Costas put it, It was based solely on his speed, HRs, and the confident smile. We didn’t need to know more, and it’s a good thing. Because MM was no god, he was Esau selling his birthright out the back door, and author Jane Leavy deftly dis-mantles the legend. It is said ‘weary is the head that wears the crown,’ and in this case, one could add the word ‘cynical.’

What he did to himself with alcohol and womanizing, chronicled meticulously here, unforgiveable. What he did in promulgating his vices among his four sons, being “their friend,” sharing his drink, women, and dissolute ways, unspeakable. When told by someone he wished MM was his father, one of his sons quipped, ‘me, too.’ Their father was distant, away, uncommunicative, uncaring. But that wasn’t the half of it. Following in his steps, they led lives of alcoholism, drugs, dissolution, and even death wish. One played live Russian roulette, and only chance kept him from an untimely end.

Back in the 1990s, when pop Christianity still held some sway over pop culture, much was made of the cancer-ridden, liver-depleted Mantle’s deathbed conversion. Leavy is less than convincing on that score; read the passage there closely: without saying so per se, she’s not buying it. I hope I’m entirely wrong on this count, btw. I chronicle comebacks in my series of “Extraordinary Comebacks” books, and besides volunteering a bit for organ donation at the end, which resulted in some backfire for the cause since some claim he jumped the line to get a new liver (he didn’t), there isn’t much of one here.

In the end, an extremely sad tale, the ultimate cautionary tale for certain, we now have one less hero, when the larder, once stocked with the likes of Brett Favre, Tiger Woods, OJ Simpson, et al, was already pretty thin by now. Mickey Mantle we hardly knew ye, and maybe for the fact that such a great, great star was so fallen from the skies, maybe wished we hadn’t at all.

I like good writing very much....

...an ad agency mogul once wrote me.

Here is a piece of good writing. I like it very much.

Novelist Salvatore Scibona in the New Yorker.

Excerpts:

No books about Aristotle...just Aristotle.....

upper middle-class prejudices about time and space....

even my body needed to read.....

such a gift to find my tribe....

every year since has been a more intense and enigmatic joy.......

You don't run across writing...

...this transparent and revealing, every day.

Seems everyone has a story. They are as if "flying under the radar" --- only until you know their story. Not many reveal theirs.

Richard Russell has revealed some of his here....

An honors education: creating the self-educating individual

Friday, April 01, 2011, winter is (pretty) safely behind us, we will ignore the snowstorm hitting the East today, and snow on the ground for the White Sox opener in Cleveland, and a few random forecasts for smaller amounts of same here, and look ahead one month to graduation season, and present you with these thoughts on education.

From the archives. Given to Ohio State University College of Agriculture, Honors Banquet, Ohio Union, 6 p.m., Thursday, November 3, 1983. Was chosen to speak since earlier that year college had given me Young Professional Award. Audience included faculty, staff, parents and students -- several hundred in all. I am amused that I called "journalism" a "hard" discipline vs. soft like literature. Otherwise, I am surprised at how prescient my comments were -- 12 years before Al Gore invented the Internet. The meat of the message -- we must continually educate and re-educate ourselves -- remains more timely than ever....

Thank you Dr. Darrow.

I appreciate the opportunity to be back here at Ohio State. I took an awful lot away from this institution and it's nice to be able to bring a little something back tonight.

Of course, it brings back a lot of memories to me.

I remember things like a victory over Michigan, the winning of a Big-Ten title and following a jubilant crowd down High Street ••• a crowd that was carrying part of the goal post down to the state capital. Kind of a crazy thing to do ••• but it seemed like a good idea to many at the time.

I remember personal things like meeting my future wife-to-be at an agriculture college function here in the student union.

And, I remember more sedate things like ••• studying. I suppose all of us in the honors program spend a good deal of time studying.

One of my favorite places to study was the stacks in the main library. I remember going up into the stacks in the early evening and settling into a quiet nook listening to the Orton Hall chimes, looking out occasionally on the Oval, and then getting distracted by all the thousands and thousands of volumes containing the wisdom of the ages in the bookshelves around me. I especially remember coming across one particular book, and happening upon a quote that stuck with me, and this is the quote. It said simply, that "the goal of a liberal education is self-educating man." I suppose for our purposes here tonight, we would not be doing too great a violence to the text if we were to substitute the word "honors" for "liberal" and say that "the goal of an honors education is self-educating man."

As a professional communicator, I try to avoid clichés and trite phrases and hackneyed sayings as diligently as I can. But I think it's important to note that we are living in a changing world. And the phrase "a changing world" is a cliché. But like most clichés it's very true.

And in this rapidly changing world, the need for self-education has never been greater. This need is amplified by the sometimes volatile economic pressures that are forcing these tremendous changes.

We hear a lot about computers.

We hear a lot about consultants and we hear a lot about communications in agriculture. We hear phrases like post-industrial society, third wave society. In his book megatrends, John Naisbitt examines these changes. He cites ten major changes ••• or megatrends. Quoting from his book, he says:

1. Although we continue to think we live in an industrial society, we have in fact changed to an economy based on the creation and distribution of information.

2. We are moving in the dual directions of high tech/high touch, matching each new technology with a compensatory human response.

3. No longer do we have the luxury of operating within an isolated, self-sufficient, national economic system; we now must acknowledge that we are part of a global economy. We have begun to let go of the idea that the United States is and must remain the world's industrial leader as we move on to other tasks.

4. We are restructuring from a society run by short-term considerations and rewards in favor of dealing with things in much longer-term frames.

5. In cities and states, in small organizations and subdivisions, we have rediscovered the ability to act innovatively and to achieve results -- from the bottom up.

6. We are shifting from institutional help to more self-reliance in all aspects of our lives.

7. We are discovering that the framework of representative democracy has become obsolete in an era of instantaneously shared information.

8. We are giving up our dependence on hierarchical structures in favor of information networks. This will be especially important to the business community.

9. More Americans are living in the south and west, leaving behind the old industrial cities of the north.

10. From a narrow either/or society with a limited range of personal choices, we are exploding into a free-wheeling multiple-option society.

Back in the days of antiquity, when I was a student at Ohio State in the late sixties and early seventies, social issues were paramount. Our economy hadn't yet begun to fully pay the price through inflation of the Vietnam War. Our society was still fat, happy and extravagant.

As we came through the economic wrenchings of the 70's, however, everybody found out that the party was over. Really over. Getting a job, keeping a job. These were the things that became paramount. Studies showed that the students of the mid and late seventies were more conservative. And with the tight economy, especially in agriculture of the recent years, this trend has continued.

I daresay your number one interest is your career. Getting started, getting your toe-hold in the marketplace.

From my experience, I can tell you that you already have a leg up on the situation. You are in the honors program. In being named to this program, you're already telling the marketplace that you're a little bit more motivated, a little bit more determined, a little brighter, perhaps, than some of your fellow students.

Will an honors education give you the skills you need in the workplace? It may. Being in the honors program is a great advantage. You can use this experience to help you win the job and create the career that you're working so hard to do.

Not long ago I read a book by an employment expert who recommended that students and recent graduates develop "clusters of expertise." in other words, combinations of expertise, that give them a unique advantage in the marketplace. And I know some of you are doing that. Some of you are combining agriculture and law, for example. Some of you have structured your technical and ag business program to prepare you for law school, thus ultimately giving you a unique agricultural and legal skill for the marketplace. You might be interested to know that an agricultural law center has just opened this quarter at Iowa State university. Immediately, thirty people signed up for this unusual combination or 'career cluster.'

Others of you are combining computer skills with all facets of agriculture, whether animal science, ag econ, horticulture or whatever.

Still others of you are combining agriculture with advertising.

And still others of you are combining technical agriculture with heavy course work in genetics and statistics and related areas to prepare you to take your place in the vanguard of the Biotech Revolution • • • a revolution that many futurists have written on extensively.

So will an honors education give you the hard skills that you need to get ahead? It very well may. But, it may not. But your custom-made honors program may give you something just as important as skills. It may give you curiosity and resourcefulness.

In my program, I took both a hard and soft skills route. Hard -- courses in journalism so that I could learn my trade, so to speak. But I also took independent studies in literature, criticism, music and history. Not hard core skills, but courses to satisfy my own curiosity.

How does this apply to what's happening in the marketplace? Well, in undertaking some of these areas that were not ag related, I learned that you can learn about anything, if you're interested. You can, in

Fact, self-educate.

How does this apply to the "real world" so to speak? Several years ago, our company was faced with a unique problem. Our client, Elanco Products Company, wanted us to develop a multi-image program for the U.S. Feed Grains Council. A multi-image show, as you know, is a rather spectacular and wonderful thing. Many images, music, action and so forth. They are very expensive to produce and very expensive just to put on. We knew that the initial showing of this multi-image show would be spectacular, but we also knew that the resources of the Feed Grains Council were limited; the number of times the show would be seen after that would be limited. So we went back to the drawing board. For some time, our company had had an interest in television, specifically narrowcasting or beaming messages at farmers.

As a matter of fact, we had counseled our clients and developed special reports in this area. We had studied it, read magazines, interviewed people, spent time self-educating. When this moment arrived, when we were to undertake the multi-image program, we told our client that we appreciated the assignment, but let us go back to the drawing board and think about it a bit.

We came back to them with an idea that cost them a great deal more than a multi-image show, as expensive as those are to produce, but our point in so doing was to bring our client an idea that would generate for our client many, many times more the value than a mere credit at the end of multi-image show.

Our idea was to create a television special! A national television special for national agriculture day. Our client liked the idea immediately, and we were commissioned to do the job.

The first year’s program dealt with grain exports; our second year program was a human interest story on three young people who, despite the odds, got started in farming, and wet re right now in the midst of the production for our third year show. We have applied the idea to communications opportunities for the National 4-H Council and the National Association of Realtors. We are presently producing a television special for "Private Property Week" April 8 - 14, 1984 for the National Association of Realtors, the nation’s largest trade association.

The point is, all this was made possible through self-education, the goal of the honors education. Just as you go beyond traditional curriculum to put together agriculture, law, computer, biotech and other unique combinations, so too we had to go beyond traditional public relations: news releases, feature stories, and so forth, to create a public relations concept that expanded our frontiers, and those of our clients. The television program included dimensions of public relations, but also of advertising, programming and so forth. Through this intra-disciplinary broad outlook we were able to go beyond traditional public relations to create an entirely new communications product. One that’s not only of value to agriculture but also to other industries, such as real estate.

I tell you this story to encourage you to use your time now in the honors program to be original, to be thinking, to be expanding your concepts of the areas that you will soon be working in. I also tell you this story to encourage you to take full advantage of your honors program.

How to do that?

Plan for your career. Set goals. Nothing ever happens until a goal is set.

I recently ran across the definition of a goal that I liked very much. Someone said that a goal was a dream with a deadline. So dream, plan, set deadlines.

Second, allow for some serendipity. Allow for synthetic thinking. Take an idea from area A, apply it to area B and create a whole new area, C.

Third, take an academic chance along the way. That's the only way that you can really achieve synthetic thinking. Even if you are not comfortable in humanities, take music history. If you're very literary, take a computer course. Your right brain will start to talk to your left brain. You will create new vistas, new horizons for yourself.

If you do all these things, you'll be well prepared to begin another phase of your education upon graduation from this hallowed ground. You'll be ready for a whole new set of achievements. You'll be self-educating and you will have achieved the goal of an honors education.

Thank you very much

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